Decrease pain while doing Zhan Zhuang

[andrew1139]

Hi everybody!

I recently started practicing Zhan Zhuan from the book "The way of energy". I really enjoy it, but when I do the exercise "Holding the balloon", my arms start to feel really heavy and I have to stop every minute because of the pain. I know that it should go away after a while of practicing, but until then, can somebody give me some exercises to do in my spare time so I can be more confortable when doing the pose?

[lifeforce]

The heaviness of the arms is part of the process. Standing re-configures everything. Extra exercises would not help. Maybe some arm swinging before practice. Start with little time holding the posture, as in 1 minute. Add 10 seconds each day, slowly working your way to longer sessions. Feel the large balloon as extremely light. 

Best wishes

[Miffymog]

There are a range of different muscles in the body that do different things. The two muscle groups to consider during ZZ are mobilising and posterial. Mobilising muscles are the ones that move you about and you have pretty good conscious control over, ie the biceps moves your arm and you have so much control over it, you can tense them at will.

 

Posterial muscles surround your body like a wet suit, tend to be smaller than the mobilising muscles and aren’t really under any conscious control. If you almost fall over, then you feel them tense up to keep you up right, but other than that, you don’t really know much about them.

 

By holding a static pose like you do in ZZ, you are strengthening these posterial muscles and after a lot of practice then a degree of control over them can be gained, but this is a long way down the road.

 

The point here, is that it is difficult to come up with any (moving) exercise that will help increase the ability of the posterial muscles to hold a static weight, because the main thing you’ll be doing is just strengthening mobilising muscles.

 

 

So all you can really do is be patient and the pain will subside. When I started out, I held the second positions for 5 minutes every day for 4 months, after that, I just timed how long I could hold it comfortably, which was 15 minutes, so that became my new duration for the next 6 months.

 

The most important thing in ZZ is to keep enjoying it. So if this means just holding the balloon for just 1 minute until it hurts, then that's fine. Because if you stick at it, that duration will naturally increase.

 

 

If you’d like to have a moving exercise, then the 8 borcades as described in the book are very good. They won’t reduce the pain you feel, but they are a very beneficial exercise.

[doc benway]

2 hours ago, andrew1139 said:

Hi everybody!

I recently started practicing Zhan Zhuan from the book "The way of energy". I really enjoy it, but when I do the exercise "Holding the balloon", my arms start to feel really heavy and I have to stop every minute because of the pain. I know that it should go away after a while of practicing, but until then, can somebody give me some exercises to do in my spare time so I can be more confortable when doing the pose?

 

My recommendation is to start with the wuji posture for several weeks or longer.

As the body naturally relaxes and begins to manifest song 鬆 (relaxed structure) the arms will feel lighter and more energetic.

Over time they will naturally and effortlessly rise. 

This is how I was taught to practice - it's very slow and very effective. 

Zhang zhuang is not based on li  (strength).

Trying to rush the postures will cause discomfort due to muscle tension.

This undermines some of the benefits of practice and can actually slow the process in the long run.

[joeblast]

relax shoulders

[thelerner]

sink comfortably and naturally like you were resting your butt, back and arms on cushions.  These cushions support you.  You can sink a little deeper into them to relieve pressure, though you still must keep your basic alignment.  That and keep a feeling of extension going, head pulled up, kwa pulled lightly down, arms slightly stretched holding the big ball.

 

You may not want to make a habit of it, but occasionally practicing to music or watching TV isn't bad imo.  I like to stand and listen to Rawn Clark's Archaeous practice, which has several levels of stacking elements within the body, aka Hermetic elemental system. 

Edited August 11, 2018 by thelerner

[andrew1139]

7 minutes ago, thelerner said:

sink comfortably and naturally like you were resting your butt, back and arms on cushions.  These cushions support you.  You can sink a little deeper into them to relieve pressure, though you still must keep your basic alignment.  That and keep a feeling of extension going, head pulled up, kwa pulled lightly down, arms slightly stretched holding the big ball.

 

You may not want to make a habit of it, but occasionally practicing to music or watching TV isn't bad imo.  I like to stand and listen to Rawn Clark's Archaeous practice, which has several levels of stacking elements within the body, aka Hermetic elemental system. 

The music part kinda helped. Unfortunately, the cushions part doesnt really work that much, but I guess my inactivity made me weak. I just hope my body will be able to get better at it, since I cant really concentrate on relaxing. 

Anyhow, how long did it take to others to get used to the pose?

[Miffymog]

18 minutes ago, andrew1139 said:

The music part kinda helped. Unfortunately, the cushions part doesnt really work that much, but I guess my inactivity made me weak. I just hope my body will be able to get better at it, since I cant really concentrate on relaxing. 

Anyhow, how long did it take to others to get used to the pose?

 

 

On 5 occasions over the last 15 years I'd follow a very simple pattern. I'd take up ZZ, stand through the discomfort waiting for the relaxing sensations to kick in, and they never would. Then after 6 months of going through this my motivation would go one morning and that was it for another 2 and a half years.

 

Then three years ago I really needed something to sort my life out and so I decided to commit myself to this, but I was going to do it different to all the other times. For all the other attempts, I would slowly take the duration of the stand up to 15 minutes ok. But because Lam Kam's book suggested that 20 minutes was a good time, I'd then try 20 myself, and I would always find it too difficult to do every day and give up.

 

So on this occasion I promised myself never to stand with any discomfort. Hence only 5 minutes for the first 4 months. If this is still hurts for you, then try out 3rd position with your hands holding the belly, or even just 1st with them by your side.  I'd still do the warm up exercises and a warm down afterwards just to give the practice a bit more substance. But I'd never stand through any pain or discomfort, knowing the strength would come. And it does, but with time.

 

There are muscles that you've probably never really used before that have to grow and strengthen, which really can take a surprisingly long time, so you have to be patient. This is one of the misleading things about Lam Kam's book. It suggests that the whole body relaxes into a pleasant state after 6 weeks. For me, this is terribly misleading and gives you totally unrealistic expectations.

 

Keep it short, keep in enjoyable, and be prepared to wait a long time to get the benefits.

[Aetherous]

I think the book itself gives some preparatory arm opening movements.

The more qi flow you develop, and also the more you get used to the position (so the more consistently you practice over months and years), the easier it becomes.

I don't think it's productive to work through the pain. Just let the arms go, and do wuji...then you could go back to embracing the tree once the arms feel normal again. Gradually, you can handle more time.

[voidisyinyang]

Stand outside with feet barefoot on the Earth.

Keep the eyes closed and do the "small universe" or "microcosmic orbit" to visualize light - and rotate the eyes as you do the visualization.